Aiyyo amma!!

The Amma brand is truly and aggressively expanding. Tamil Nadu has been taken over by Jayalalitha’s brand. Starting with water and affordable savouries, the Amma brand is now omnipresent, with all and everything being labelled as Amma.

This week, Chief minister J.Jayalalithaa on Monday announced that Amma parks and Amma gymnasiums will be set up in rural areas. 500 Amma Gyms would be set up in rural areas to promote physical and mental health of youth. This would come up at an estimated total cost of Rs50 crore. Each gym would be set up at a cost of Rs10 lakh. 

On the other hand, Amma parks would be established in village panchayats at a cost of Rs.100 crore in this financial year. The parks would have good drinking water facility, toilets, play equipment for children, cement benches. Sounds almost Utopian.

This extension of the brand to now a park and gym is over and above Amma named cement, salt, laptop, drinking water, pharmacies, grinder, mixer, micro loan schemes, mobile phones, vegetables and fruits shops, canteen, baby kits and seeds. And yes, Amma Theaters are to be launched soon with the halls expected to show only ‘U’ certified movies, with tickets priced at Rs.25.

Well, we can only get “mummified” and take solace in the fact that at least these brands of Amma work and do come at very low costs. Andhra has taken this example of Amma and started its  “Anna” brand of canteens and Delhi will be having its Aam Aadmi Canteens. This is indeed a good example to follow as long as quality is maintained and is sustainable at low costs and does not become a fiasco like the Jhunka-Bhakri scheme in Maharashtra.